Convalescence
by Kitty O
Summary: What was he without John Garrett? ((warning for some mentions of suicide and possibly self harm)) Oneshot.


What are you without John Garrett?

When he was arrested, that was the question that Agent Coulson asked him. There were a lot of other words thrown in. Words like torture and Fitzsimmons, but that was the one question that hit Ward hard right between the eyes.

Grant Ward had always been very selective about the things he cared about. John Garrett made the top of the list. Skye, Fitz, Simmons, and the rest of the team had been unfortunate additions.

Fitz would never be the same again. Because Ward had tried to kill him. It felt like failure all around. Failure to care correctly. Failure to cross off the thing that made him weak. And failure to finish it one way or the other. This was Ward's fault. It always was.

And now Garrett was dead, too.

When he was arrested, Grant Ward's world ended.

Two hours after he was arrested, Grant Ward cried.

His whole body felt ripe to explode with thoughts and feelings, and he wanted to be done with them. He didn't want to know that Garrett had stabbed a man with his own rib, or that May took a lot of pleasure in taking his voice. He didn't want to know that Fitz would never be the same again. He didn't want to know that Simmons was fine. He didn't want to know anything at all. Plus, his throat and foot hurt. He was alone, and so he finally cried.

One day after he was arrested, Grant Ward's questioning began.

He thought he handled it fine. It was dark in there, and he hurt. He could barely rasp a single word. May didn't punch him too many times. She was holding back. That was kind of her, considering he would have happily shredded her face off a day ago.

Well. Perhaps not happily. Enragedly. Was that a word? _(No.)_ Thinking back on it, he was rather pleased that he didn't have to wipe her hair and flesh from his face and the walls. He would have preferred shooting her, or something.

He didn't say much. Garrett wouldn't have wanted him to.

Four days after he was arrested, Grant Ward told them what they wanted to know.

He told himself that he knew very little, anyway. That he wasn't being much help. That of course he was going to tell them. It would stop May hitting him. That it was no more than anyone would expect of him, because he was Grant Ward and he always did what it took to survive.

But he couldn't help thinking, _Goodbye, John. _

Six days after he was arrested, the team finally left. He hadn't heard a word on Fitz. Skye had not been in to see him.

Eight days after he was arrested, it all stopped feeling real. He kept finding himself waiting for the door to open and John to walk in and save him. John had always saved him before. He started imagining that he would wake up on the plane and Skye would challenge him to a game of Battleship.

He knew they were watching his every move, and his pride wouldn't let him show his confusion.

Ten days after he was arrested, he threw a fit. It was weird. He lost control. He hit the walls. He screamed like a maniac. He yelled names, he knew that much, but hell if he could tell who he was calling for. He had seen the same walls too many times, with only bathroom breaks for company. He hadn't even gone to trial yet, and he was losing his mind.

Ward beat at the door, and then he threw his cot across the room, and then he cursed. Good and long and loud, he called heaven and hell down on the men and women who had put him here. He wished a thousand deaths on the Ice Queen. He wanted Coulson to rot in hell. He wanted Garrett to burn, burn long, even though he choked on the curse. He started to curse Fitz.

And then he beat at the wall some more, beat his head against it until his screaming stopped and he was near unconscious.

They put him in a hospital room after that.

Eleven days after he was arrested, it occurred to him that the next stage of grief was bargaining. But like hell would he give any of them the satisfaction. He kept it between himself and God.

And he wondered, for the millionth time in his life, if he believed in a God.

Fourteen days after he was arrested, he realized that the doctor was very nice and seemed actually concerned about him. Ward hated him at once, and spent his time wishing violent deaths on him.

Fifty-four days after he was arrested, they got around to putting him in jail. His voice was still raspy. He didn't say much.

Seventy days after he was arrested, he beat his jailmate to a pulp. The guy had tried to mess with Ward, called him a name. And Ward needed everyone to know that he wasn't weak. He wasn't. Except on the inside, where no one could see. Plus, the man looked like his older brother. It earned Ward some time in solitary confinement, and all he could do was think. He decided quickly to try and avoid doing that again.

Seventy-three days after he was arrested, someone asked him where he got the scar on his cheek. Ward felt his chest seize up and he gripped his wooden spoon tightly. He hadn't thought about Garrett in days, thought about the marks left on him.

He didn't answer the question.

Eighty days after he was arrested, Grant Ward figured out how he could escape. But he didn't. He had no where to go. And they fed him here. He could do all the push ups he liked.

Ninety days after he was arrested, he signed up for the jail's hospice program. By some miracle, he got in. Maybe someone was still watching him from inside this jail.

The program drove him to tears twice.

A hundred and four days after he was arrested, he watched a man that he had bathed die. The man had no family come and visit him.

"I'm all alone," the man said to Ward.

Ward held his hand and wondered why he was doing this job. To make him feel less like a monster? Probably.

"I'm here," said Ward.

The man looked right through him. "Doesn't count," he said, because it was easier for him – old and smelly as he was – than saying thank you. "Who even are you?"

That was the first time he cried.

A hundred and twenty days after he was arrested, Grant Ward watched the next one die. The volunteers were never told what the men they cared for were guilty of. But this man told Ward that he had killed. A lot of people.

"Why?" Ward asked him.

"I thought I was young and invincible. I thought I could take what I wanted."

That was the second time Ward cried. Because he had never felt young and invincible. He had never thought he could have what he wanted – not until the end, there, in the few days before his life ended. He had been just about to try that path.

It hurt to know that the old man's path hadn't brought happiness either.

What the hell even was happiness?

A hundred and fifty days after he was arrested, one of the guys said something in the mess hall. Something about women.

Ward couldn't help himself. "I knew this woman, once, who could kill about twenty men. With her bare hands. We were friends, too, until I tried to saw her face off."

"What did she do?" asked the man next to him.

"Oh, beat the crap outta me." Sometimes his voice still rasped. For the first time in months, he smiled. He shook his head. "I wonder why she didn't kill me."

The smile fell off his face.

One hundred and ninety-two days after he was arrested, Coulson visited. Ward was taciturn. No, he was curt. Okay, he was downright unfriendly.

"I don't want to talk to you."

"Well, you accepted the visit."

"I thought it might be about Fitz."

That seemed to give Coulson pause. "He's in therapy," he said. "But I'm here about Skye."

Ward shook his head. "I don't care about her."

"Her father found her."

_The baby's parents were the monsters. _Ward looked up. Coulson continued, "And he is a grave danger to her."

_I hope she's a monster; I hope she's a monster; I hope she's a monster. Monsters together._

"She's scared. We want your help."

"Why?"

"Well, maybe you need to be some help. And maybe we're short on people that we know care."

Ward stared him in the eye. "I don't care, and I don't need you. Get the hell out of here."

"Call us if you change your mind."

One hundred and ninety-four days after he was arrested, Ward broke out of prison. He didn't kill anyone doing it, either. He then spent the next two days trekking across the country, on a search for Skye and the team.

When he walked onto the bus's ramp and shot the bloody monster that stood over a screaming Skye, he was dehydrated and over tired. Then he dragged the creature out the door and told May to take off. He didn't mind the blood on his hands, and he knew the creature was far from finished. But Skye's face lit up when she saw him, and he abruptly wished that he hadn't ever left the jail.

One hundred and ninety-seven days after he was arrested, Grant Ward looked at Melinda May and said, "I was wishing you had killed me."

She nodded. "I know," she said.

Two hundred and fifteen days after he was arrested, they finally had Skye's secret and her parents dead to rights. They finished everything up there. Ward had more blood on his hands then ever, but he felt cleaner.

He walked into the room beside the lab and saw Skye punching the bag like it had wronged her.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She laughed shortly. "Um, I'm a monster? My parents are Grade A, literal monsters?"

He caught the swinging bag. He could feel his puppy dog look slipping over his face. She used to like that look. "Skye, your origin can't make you a monster. Only your actions can do that."

She looked at him for a good few seconds, sweaty and beautiful. She slipped off gloves. "Or maybe," she said quietly, "there's no such thing as a monster."

"Skye, I'm sorry," he said as she started to turn away. He told himself to shut up.

"What for?"

"That I have feelings for you." _Shut up, Grant. Shut up._

But she didn't throw up, and that counted for something.

Two hundred and sixteen days after he was arrested, Grant Ward asked Coulson when he was going to be taken back to jail.

"Yes," said Phil, who had a tough job, rebuilding SHIELD from a plane. "Yes, we're going to do that. Of course. It's just that we have a few more missions that we'd like to get done…"

Two hundred and eighteen days after he was arrested, he noticed that his team looked just as ready to shoot him as the enemy.

Two hundred and twenty days after he was arrested, he was allowed to stop by and see his younger brother. He hadn't visited in years.

And he sat down by the gravestone and put down his flower. "Hey," he said. "I thought I should stop by. I never did before, I know, but I've got a new mission to complete. I don't think I'll ever finish it, but this is a good place to start. So here goes: I'm sorry. I am sorry that I didn't protect you like you deserved. I'm sorry that I threw you in the well. I'm sorry that I didn't give you any piece of the childhood that you deserved. You weren't like me, and you never played the victim, and so it would be easy to forget that you deserve an apology too. But you do." He put his hand on the stone. "I wish you could teach me. I'm so sick of playing the victim."

He stood up to walk away. "I'm so sick of hating the people I'm supposed to love."

Two hundred and twenty on days after he was arrested, Ward walked up to Simmons.

"Simmons?"

She looked up. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

A pause. "What did you do?"

"I let you fall out of the bus. I wish I could explain what I was thinking. About how if I did that, I wouldn't have to pull the trigger myself, and how I knew you were competent… And how I thought if I did it, it would make everything easier. But it sounds really stupid to say that when I remember what it was I did. I have no excuse. I'm sorry."

Simmons bit her lip. "I accept."

"Are you going to see Fitz?"

"Later today."

"…Can I come?"

She let him come, and he walked up to Fitz, who watched him with lively eyes.

"What's the damage?" Ward asked, and winced at how it sounded.

Fitz shrugged. "Fainting spells. Um, short term memory, that's hard. Doing math is like… death. And my arm hurts when it's going to rain."

"I'm sorry."

Fitz smiled at him.

Ward looked at the sky, and then back to the man in front of him. "You wanted to care about me even when I left," he said. "I just want you to know that's the bravest thing I've ever heard of."

Two hundred and forty-three days after he was arrested, Grant Ward threw a chair across the room and watched it smash. He yelled. He raged. Mostly at May, and at himself, and he ignored how Skye cried in the other room. May was unmoved. He thought of Garrett for the first time in ages and relished that no one here had the power of that judgmental voice when Ward got weak.

Two hundred and forty-five days after he was arrested, Grant Ward got put in therapy by Agent Coulson. Tony Stark offered his help, and Coulson took it.

Ward didn't put up a fight. He wasn't quite sure he had the energy.

Two hundred and sixty-five days after he was arrested, Grant Ward heard the word "abuse". The therapist said it. Addressed it at him.

He had been abused.

They said physically, mentally, sexually. And it shook Ward to the core. He had known that he had been mistreated sometimes. But the word – he hadn't thought of that word. He hadn't put it together.

By his family, sure. But Garrett? By Garrett? Sure, Ward could accept that maybe Garrett had never loved him. He had put that together a month or so ago. But abuse. Abuse was a heavy word. Abuse meant that some of those people he killed hadn't just been on his conscience, but should be on that of his parents. Abuse meant that for the past thirty years – thirty damn years! – Ward hadn't seen a healthy word.

He hadn't been playing the victim. He was the victim.

He was reeling when he entered his bunk. He fished the gun out from under his bed and sat on it, staring at the gun.

Garrett had never cared for him.

He was literally a psychological mess, wasn't he? Not a monster – a baby. A child.

Ward fingered the gun.

And then he threw it aside and took out his phone. "Coulson?" he said. "Would you please come to my bunk? I just had thoughts about killing myself."

Two hundred and seventy-one days after he was arrested, Ward stopped in the middle of making dinner to say, "May, I'm sorry I called you an Ice Queen."

That made her laugh. She was singing Let It Go for the next week.

Three hundred and one days after he was arrested, he decided he needed a change in medicine.

Three hundred and twenty days after he was arrested, he felt as though the medicine and the therapy were really working.

Three hundred and forty-two days after he was arrested, he went on a mission and felt for the first time that the team was watching his back, not him.

That afternoon, he saw Coulson pat Tripp on the back. He heard Coulson giving Skye and hug.

He was unfriendly for the next two weeks.

Three hundred and eighty days after he was arrested, Skye appeared at his bunk door. "Ward," she said. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked.

She was holding his new and improved file. "I'm sorry that all this happened to you."

He stared at her until she left.

Four hundred and two days after he was arrested, Coulson officially told him that the jail sentence had been changed to community service time. It occurred to Ward that he wasn't going back to jail.

Four hundred and six days after he was arrested, Ward finally told Coulson about his mission. He asked if there was any way to find a list of the men he had killed.

"That's a dangerous thing to do to yourself," said Coulson.

"But I want to apologize."

There was no comprehensive list, but they found the names of some. If they had no family, like Hand, Ward put flowers on their graves. He felt silly.

When he got back on the bus, he thanked Coulson.

And then he sought out Skye. "Skye?"

"What's up?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Because you thought you could love me before all this. I think you were the first. It means a lot."

He turned to walk away and Skye said, "Ward."

"What?" He turned back around.

"I never stopped loving you. I just wasn't stupid. I knew it wouldn't work. But I did love you."

"Well, then, thanks for that."

Four hundred and twenty-eight days after he was arrested, Ward went on a mission and defeated three of the enemies. And he wasn't even tempted to kill them.

Four hundred and thirty-three days after he was arrested, Ward used his body to protect three civilians from a blast, and afterward, a little girl kissed his cheek in thanks. He smiled.

Four hundred and fifty-two days after he was arrested, Skye got a little drunk and kissed him. She apologized in the morning.

Four hundred and sixty days after he was arrested, Ward beat Tripp, Skye, and Simmons at Monopoly. Tripp grinned at him.

Four hundred and seventy-one days after he was arrested, Skye made him a cake for his birthday. He went to see Fitz and brought it, sharing some.

Fitz spent the entire visit dancing around the room and singing Simmons's phone number triumphantly at him. He didn't mess up the order, and he was so proud of himself. It was the best birthday present ever.

Four hundred and eighty days after he was arrested, Fitz permanently, officially rejoined the team. Full time. He would never be the same again, of course, but then, who would?

Five hundred and one days after he was arrested, Ward fell under the spell of the hypnotic gas that the enemy was using. He couldn't fight it, and it wasn't his fault.

He was eternally grateful that he didn't kill anyone. There was very little he could remember from his time spent under, though. All he knew was blood and orders. And then there was Coulson, grabbing his face and screaming.

"Who are you?" he said. "You're not this. You're not a nameless soldier. You've been a lackey and it doesn't suit you. Ward, come out and tell me who you are because honestly, I don't know. I need you to fight this."

Ward fell to his knees. "I'm Agent Grant Douglass Ward," he said. "I'm not an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. But I am a person, and I'm mine."

He turned his gun to the enemy.

That night, he was sick in his room, and had to clean it up himself.

Five hundred and sixteen days after he was arrested, Jemma Simmons got excited and gave him a hug.

Five hundred and seventeen days after he was arrested, Leo Fitz slapped him on the back.

Five hundred and sixty days after he was arrested, Grant Ward went and found May. "I'm grateful," he said as he stared down at her.

"For what?" she asked.

"That you didn't kill me."

She gave the tiniest of smiles. "I know."

Six hundred and two days after he was arrested, Grant Ward watched Fitz have a meltdown because he kept messing up the digits of pi. Ward stood there and did nothing while Simmons spoke to her friend calmingly and Skye ran to get Coulson.

Six hundred and twelve days after he was arrested, Fitz and Skye were injured on a mission. Ward was the only one there, and he had to patch them up. He stopped the bleeding. He got the painkiller. He spoke soothingly.

He was terrified the entire time, but neither one of them flinched away at all.

They weren't afraid of him.

Six hundred and thirty-four days after he was arrested, he was kidnapped by some soldiers. They tied him to a chair and told him that he would talk. They told him that he couldn't even imagine the things that they could do to him.

He laughed until Coulson's team came and saved him.

Seven hundred and eight days after he was arrested, Tripp heard him knock on the hotel room door, and asked, "Who is it?"

"Grant Ward," he said, and smirked. "Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Seven hundred and forty-four days after he was arrested, he woke up yelling from his nightmare. Skye was there, and she calmed him down.

Eight hundred days after he was arrested, he met Natasha Romanov. She shook his hand firmly.

Eight hundred and five days after he was arrested, he had to opportunity to tell an opponent that he would rather die than let them touch Fitzsimmons or Skye. It felt good to mean it.

Eight hundred and sixteen days after he was arrested, he thought about Garrett. He felt only a passing sadness.

Nine hundred and six days after he was arrested, he hugged Skye. He held on tightly. She trusted him to do this, to hold her in his arms like a friend, like a _perhaps-one-day-something-more_. She smelled nice, and holding her close made him feel strong. Not weak. Not guilty. Just nice.

That day, he had call to remember for the first time in a long time that when he was arrested, he'd thought his life was over.

Now, nine hundred and six days after he was arrested, he thought that it was far from ended.

Nine hundred and six days after he was arrested, he remembered that he was still young.


End file.
